Hooker was also known for her role in achieving justice for the victims of America's worst race riot, which she survived. She was 6 when her family was one of many attacked during the 1921 Tulsa race riot, which resulted in the deaths of a great many African-Americans.

Hooker was born in Muskogee, Okla., in 1915. Her parents were Samuel and Anita Hooker. The family moved to the Tulsa area, and her father owned a store. They didn't live in downtown Tulsa but in the suburb of Greenwood, which was known as "Black Wall Street" because some of the African-American residents were well-to-do.

On May 3, 1921, mobs attacked several hundred homes and businesses owned by African-Americans, including the business owned by Samuel Hooker. Olivia Hooker and her three siblings hid under a table while their family belongings, including doll clothes, were destroyed.

Like many African-American families, the Hookers moved out of the Tulsa area after the riot. They went to Topeka, Kan., and then settled in Columbus, Ohio. Hooker went to Ohio State University and got a bachelor's degree.

When the U.S. entered World War II, the U.S. Government made it possible for nonwhite women to join the military. Hooker applied to the Navy Women's Reserve but was rejected. The Coast Guard Women's Reserve, known as SPARs, accepted her, in 1945. She was the first African-American woman accepted by the Coast Guard.

The war ended that same year. In 1946, Hooker, whose main job during the waning days of the war was to handle some of the logistics of discharged for returning servicemen, typed her own discharge papers. She qualified for GI benefits, which helped pay for her graduate studies at Columbia University, from which she received a master's degree in psychological services , and the University of Rochester, from which she received a doctorate in psychology. She later worked as a professor at Fordham University, in New York City, from 1963 to 1985. She was one of the founders of the American Psychological Association Division 33, which deals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

She returned to her childhood trauma in 1997, as a founding member of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. This group conducted extensive investigations into the events surrounding the violence. Eventually, the State of Oklahoma approved a limited number and amount of reparations.

Hooker retired at the age of 87 and then turned to volunteering. She joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary when she was 95 and served as a Yonkers, N.Y., volunteer. She continued to volunteer well past her 100th birthday. She was in the audience in 2015 when then-President Barack Obama made special mention of her during his commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. That same year, the Coast Guard affixed her name to a building at its Staten Island complex and a Washington, D.C., training facility did the same.